1. The Olympics: Every couple of years we’re reminded that it is possible to put political and religious beliefs aside and just enjoy sport. Or, as Monty Python’s Eric Idle sang in the closing ceremony, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” From MIchael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Kerri Walsh Jennings/Misty May-Treanor and Allyson Felix to “Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorious, the London Games were a smashing success. Just don’t compare the 2012 U.S. men’s basketball team to the 1992 Dream Team.

2. PGA Championship: Rory McIlroy is good. Really good. He won the PGA by a record eight-stroke margin at Kiawah Island, breaking Jack Nicklaus’ record. Even his 75 Friday in blustery conditions was impressive, as it was three shots better than the field’s average. McIlroy, 23, become the second-youngest player to win two majors, just a couple of months behind Nicklaus and ahead of one Eldrick Woods, whose winless streak in the majors continued. If McIlroy hadn’t collaped on the back nine at Augusta National last year and blown the Masters, he’d already be at three major titles.

3. UCLA football: Redshirt freshman Brett Hundley was named the starting quarterback by new coach Jim Mora on Friday, then threw four interceptions in the second of two practice sessions Saturday. While brought in to run former coach Rick Neuheisel’s “pistol” offense, Hundley’s athleticism should serve him well behind an offensive line that has been dropping in the San Bernardino summer heat. Give props to former starting QB Kevin Prince (Crespi), who didn’t mope and said of Hundley: “His work ethic is incredible. You should have seen him this summer. He was just doing everything he can possibly do to be the best quarterback he can be. His drive is unparalleled. I think he deserves (the starting job).”

4. Galaxy: The defending MLS Cup champions have gone through some dry spells this season, but Sunday’s 4-0 victory against rival Chivas USA — sans David Beckham, who was in London for Olympic festivities — pulled them within one point of third-place Seattle and Vancouver in the Western Conference and showed they will still be a team to contend with in the postseason. Landon Donovan assisted on all four goals, with Juninho scoring twice and Robbie Keane potting his 10th of the season to open the scoring.

5. Chad Johnson: The former Mr. Ochocinco was cut by the Miami Dolphins hours after being arrested for allegedly head-butting his reality-show wife, Evelyn Lozada, whom he married last month. Mrs. Johnson told police she confronted her husband after finding a receipt for condoms in the trunk of their car. We only have two words for the hanging Chad: “Child, please!”

DALLAS — Muscle shirts, ripped jeans and flip-flops — fine for the
beach, not so fine for big league press boxes starting next season.
Baseball has become the first major pro league in North America to issue dress
guidelines for media members, putting them in writing at the winter meetings.
The no-wear list also includes visible undergarments, excessively short skirts or
anything with a team logo.
“This is not in response to any single incident,” MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said
Tuesday.
However, baseball was aware of the flap caused in the National Football League when a
Mexican TV reporter drew unwanted attention at the New York Jets’ training camp in
September 2010, and formed a committee of executives and media representatives to
work on guidelines.
The panel included female and Latin reporters and there was input from team trainers,
who had health concerns about flip-flops in clubhouses and bare feet possibly
spreading infections. Such footwear is no longer permitted.
The media should dress “in an appropriate and professional manner” with clothing
proper for a “business casual work environment” when in locker rooms, dugouts, press
boxes and on the field, the new MLB rules say.
Banned are sheer and see-through clothing, tank tops, one-shouldered or strapless
shirts or clothing exposing bare midriffs. Also listed in the guidelines are skirts,
dresses or shorts cut more than 3-4 inches above the knee.
The NFL, NBA and NHL do not have similar policies.
MLB and members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America who regularly cover
the sport agree that most reporters are within the boundaries. Probably not everyone,
though.
“Personally, I believe the baseball media in general could dress slightly more
professionally,” said San Francisco Chronicle writer Susan Slusser, recently elected
vice president of the BBWAA and a member of the guidelines panel. “I think it’s been
a little too casual.”
MLB said it would consider appropriate actions if the guidelines were broken.
At 81, former Marlins manager Jack McKeon has seen dress codes change a lot during
more than a half-century in the game. Especially at warm-weather ballparks during the
hottest summer months.
“I remember the old days, when even the people in Triple-A would wear a coat and
tie,” he said. “Now, it’s casual. Less than casual, really,” he said.
“Today, it can look pretty sloppy,” he said. “But that’s not just baseball. It’s
generational.”

We shut down comments on the UCLA blog last weekend because things were getting downright nasty.
A couple of readers were threatening to fight each other. A few others were taking shots at reporter Jill Painter for an innocuous post about running back Kahlil Bell perhaps getting the chance to play with Brett Favre with the Minnesota Vikings.
What bothered me was that some readers felt the need to bring gender into the equation.
No, Jill didn’t play wide receiver in college. Does that mean she can’t report on football? Does that mean we shouldn’t send a male reporter to cover a Sparks game?
I’ve often thought some of my best stories were on sports I wasn’t familiar with, as I had to learn about them and convey that information to the reader.
One look at me and you’d think I was an offensive lineman in high school and/or college. But I’ve never played a down of football in my life. Probably wouldn’t even be able to figure out where all the pads go. But I’ve covered plenty of football, including the NFL.
I was standing next to USA Today reporter Denise Tom the day Cincinnati Bengals coach Sam Wyche decided to not let her into the locker room. It didn’t hit me at the moment — I was a cub reporter worried about meeting my deadline — but later that night after filing my story I stopped and thought about how Wyche prevented Tom from doing the same thing I was trying to do — my job. That incident occured nearly 20 years ago. We’ve come a long way since then.
So why is gender still brought into question for female sportswriters?

It’s safe to say that we are currently in the steroids era in sports. But is that a bad thing? Think of the names Bonds, McGwire, Clemens, Rodriguez and what they have contributed to sports. The sad reality is that the steroids era has been by far the most exciting era in history. Never before have players been breaking and chasing records like in today’s game.

The only unfair thing I see about steroids is that they aren’t available to everyone. With numerous superstars in the news, you can’t help but think how many other players are using steroids but just haven’t been caught. Players seem to be one step ahead of sporting commissions and using drugs that are not yet being tested for. Since players are still able to get around drug tests, then allow every player the right to use steroids to even the playing field for all players.

Steroids will continue to be prevalent with athletes in the near future because of the dream they have had since they started playing sports, which is to be the best. The natural competitiveness instilled in successful athletes will drive them to become better than other players and that will involve steroids. If a player is willing to sacrifice his long-term health to be a superstar today, why not let him do it? Players using steroids are also beneficial to the spectators as well. Steroids turns athletes into super humans that are able to run faster, and become stronger than every imagined.

However, if legalizing steroids to even the playing field is not the plan for the future of sports, then harsher punishments for steroid users should be made. Harsher punishments could include banishing the player from the sport, and/or giving back the salary the player made while using steroids. It’s sickening to watch high-profile players like Rodriguez use steroids and only getting a slap on the wrist, and continue to make $28 million a year. Steroids need to either, be legalized to even the playing field, or make punishments for steroid users more severe .

(Jason McNaughton is a junior at USC and a member of the men’s tennis team.)

On my first day as an oh-fficial professional sports journalist, I worked the copy desk at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, just down the freeway from where the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies were getting ready for the 1983 playoffs. I was told to gather news items from the paper’s reporters at Dodger Stadium, to stitch together a “notebook” story for an inside page, and was encouraged to give it my own flair, if there was any to give.

Knowing Steve Carlton would start Game 1 for Philadelphia, and remembering the famously media-unfriendly lefty had uttered his last public comments during an earlier Phillies-Dodgers playoff series, I thought it would be fun to look in the Herald’s clip files and see what he’d said then. Theold quotes turned out to be wonderfully dull, so I typed up a short item pointing out how, during Carlton’s silent years, the world had missed little in the way of wisdom.

The next morning, a radio guy named Charleye Wright tookexception to my wisecrack.

Twenty-five years and something shy of 10,000 stories later, I have occasion to think about the vast changes in L.A. sports in this span. I’m struck that many of these changes are decidedly un-vast.

For one thing, after the passing of a full human generation, the Dodgers
again were losing to the Phillies in the National League Championship Series. The Lakers again were losing to the Boston Celtics in the NBAFinals.
USC football and UCLA basketball still were bigger than UCLA football and USC basketball. The Dodgers are still bigger than the Angels, hockey still hasn’t taken over, pro soccer still hasn’t taken hold.

There have been comings (Raiders, Clippers) and goings (Rams, Raiders), sports meccas abandoned here (Forum, Sports Arena) and built there (Staples Center, Honda Center). Most of the great things to happen in this quarter-century of L.A. sports have been completely non-permanent (Olympics, Kirk Gibson, Wayne Gretzky, Shaquille O’Neal).

In sports, I’ve figured out, life is what happens while you’re waiting for the Clippers to knock the Lakers off the front pages.

The fun is the enduring joys (Vin Scully, John Wooden, the Coliseum flame, the Santa Anita view). It’s the minor happenings and characters that pop up and seem historic at the time but really are more salt than steak.

I can’t tell you how many times I and my colleagues wrote that this upset, that trade or yesterday’s milestone reflects a sea change in sports or, gosh, even an epic cultural shift.

Before we discovered the sea change was a splashing pebble, and Silver Charm winning the first two legs of the Triple Crown didn’t mean horse racing was about to supplant football and cop shows as America’s obsessions.

The beauty of sports is that they’re self-contained, a world of their own, compact enough to get your arms around. As a fan or a sportswriter, you can know enough to think you know it all.

One of my sportswriting heroes, Mark Heisler, said being an NBA columnist is like being the master of his own little puppet show. What a fantastic image, the writer big and powerful and the players small and hollow.

These things occur to me as I consider what I’ll miss most about sports, besides a community of really good and talented people.

Next week I leave the sports department to start writing for the news pages. Though I’m excited about the possibilities, it’s daunting for a sportswriter to face a world where there’s no pocket schedule to say when the news happens, no 25-man rosters to say who matters, and no standings to say who wins and loses.

Only sports are so self-contained, such a world of their own, sufficiently compact to get your arms around. News seems infinite, unpredictable.

While I try to figure out where news coverage begins and ends, I plan to keep looking to sports’ friendly confines. Between those lines, the more things change, the more they stay the same, a comforting thought in some way.

After filing my Wednesday column about the value of Manny Ramirez’s star power to the Dodgers, I got to thinking more about stardom. In sports, how is being a star different than being a great player? What makes someone a star? How do you measure it?

And the questions I put to you: Who’s the least-great athlete who’s a star? Who’s the greatest athlete who isn’t a star?

Mike Mussina announced his retirement today. Looking at him as we looked at Dick Allen this morning — through baseball-reference.com’s intriguing “similarity scores” — Mussina has the profile of a Hall of Famer. These are the 10 pitchers who were most similar to Mussina statistically.

Among Shaquille O’Neal’s recent comments about the Lakers was this on his relationship with Kobe Bryant: “And not only was it fun, we’ll always be remembered as the best Lakers one-two punch. I’m going on record as saying we’re the best Lakers guard-center punch. You heard if from me. Ever.”

a. A new brand of salad dressing
b. The name of the Dodgers’ new spring-training camp
c. A Heath Ledger movie

Answer: b.

Oh, well, I’m sure “Dodgertown” took some getting used to, too. Just not as much as this.

Here’s the news release:

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox announced today that their two-team, state-of-the-art Spring Training campus in Glendale, AZ will be named Camelback Ranch. Dodger Owner and Chairman Frank McCourt and White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf made the announcement.

“The name ‘Camelback Ranch’ inspires the pioneering spirit of the Dodgers’ original move west in 1958 and with our relocation this spring to Arizona, that move is now complete,” said McCourt. “We believe this facility will be the best in all of Major League Baseball and will provide our team with an unparalleled place to prepare year-round for championship-caliber baseball.”

“Camelback Ranch in Glendale soon will be known as the crown-jewel of the Cactus League,” said Reinsdorf. “Starting this spring, baseball fans will be able to enjoy a world-class complex that features the Cactus League’s largest ballpark with state-of-the-art amenities and one of the most scenic environments in all of sports and entertainment.”

The 141-acre site is located on Camelback Road just west of the Loop 101. The first-rate baseball facility includes more than 118,000 square feet of Major and Minor League clubhouse space, 13 full baseball fields, and three half-fields. The site will feature picturesque walking trails, landscaped grounds, and an orange grove. There will also be two ponds and a fully-stocked lake between the Dodgers and White Sox facilities.

The shared stadium, which will be the focal point of the complex, is the largest in the Cactus League with a capacity of 13,000 which includes 3,000 lawn seats, 12 luxury suites, a party deck, and a unique center field rotunda entrance. Fans will enjoy the ballpark’s modern amenities and design as well as dramatic mountain views from within the park that will create one of the most inviting Spring Training atmospheres in all of baseball.

“It is my sincere hope that generations of families will create lifelong memories at Camelback Ranch,” said Dodger President Jamie McCourt. “This idyllic setting — only five hours by car and a one-hour flight from Los Angeles — could not come at a more perfect time for Dodger fans, many of whom have waited a long time to take part in the Spring Training experience.”

“Many former Chicagoans now call the Valley home,” said Reinsdorf. “That large contingent of people, along with the thousands of current Chicagoans who travel to the Phoenix area during the winter months, now will have the opportunity to enjoy White Sox baseball in an incomparable sports and entertainment facility.”

In addition to serving as the Spring Training home of the White Sox and Dodgers, the campus will become the home for all Dodger minor league operations throughout the year, including the team’s Arizona League entry and Fall Instructional League team. The White Sox also will use Camelback Ranch in Glendale as the home for their Fall Instructional League.

Camelback Ranch will become a multi-use facility, available to host concerts, sporting events, and corporate outings, in addition to Spring Training baseball.

The 2009 Spring Training schedules will be released shortly for each team, while the joint venture offers six different season ticket options: Home Plate Club, Dugout Field Box, Baseline Field Box, Premium Infield Box, Infield Box, and Baseline Reserved, along with day-of-game Lawn seating. Fans interested in purchasing season tickets should call (623) 877-8585.